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Halo 4

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For some reason I'm actually kind of excited for the new sound assets for everything.

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I haven't replied to this thread?

Juts a few things regarding it

Bad:

  • Jetpacks and other armour abilities returning.
  • BR looks way too square.

Good:

  • The BR is back.
  • The multiplayer maybe better balanced than Reach.

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Jetpacks and other armour abilities returning.

Fact: Jetpacks are never, ever A Bad Thing.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJVgXBfSH8



So Halo's forays into live-action continue to be totally okay.

I enjoyed this, i thought it was pretty well done. A few flimsy lines of dialogue, characters making some dumb choices, but generally pretty good. The scrawny cadets also look pretty goofy with their bulky oversized gear, and the location being used for the academy is one i recognize from a lot of other sci-fi that has been shot in vancouver. Just a random fancy looking building that constantly pops up in science-fiction because of its interesting architecture, kind of an amusing thing. (The shots coming after the 9 minute mark, to be clear.)

So one of these per week until the launch of Halo 4.

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I saw this, and just had to come into portray this scenario into your minds:

A darkness sits in front of you, a yawning emptiness of fear and the unknown. From its depths comes a voice to make the heavens tremble "Halo... Halo never changes. From the dawn of the year two thousand and one you have been an unstoppable force of reckoning against the alien hordes. Your terrible onslaught has never stopped against the enemies of things that happen to conveniently be in your way, that are also possibly some sort of threat against a vague notion of futuristic humanity as a whole."

Out of the mists comes a variety of Covenant, brightly colored and talking gibberish.

"You have slain the mighty Covenant. An alien alliance seemingly incapable of devising new tactics or strategies whatsoever."

Then comes the hordes of Flood, trying to look as annoying, mindless, and pointless as possible.

"You have slain the terrible Flood. Another alien race, thing... they're zombies or the zerg or something, but aren't as interesting as either."

Then come the friggen Forerunner robots.

"You have slain these robot things. Thousands of them. All the same."

And then comes, the man himself, Master Chief. Striding out of the mists as a god among the puny mortals of ultra repetitive gaming franchises.

"And this Winter, you will do exactly that... again. Because Halo, Halo never changes."

End trailer. The audience cheers and lines up for pre-orders. You are left awestruck at the sheer power of, whatever the hell it is you just witnessed.

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So uh... Can i talk about Halo 4 now that it's out, or will i just be subject to more snideness?

Just looking around the internet, I'm amazed at how polarized people have been towards Halo 4. I mean, of course it was going to happen, but it seems to have gone so much further for this game.

Personal early opinion based on about eight hours straight of not sleeping - It seems cool, it's uncharacteristically rough in spots and i have some concerns about how the mp will shake out, but i am tentatively optimistic about it. I think it also has the best story in the series, though it dives hard into things mentioned only in the books and will probaby leave more casual fans completely bewildered.

It really does feel like a game from a new team trying to one up what came before, and maybe not quite getting there. There's a lot of little things that come across as imitative without achieving quite the same effect.

It's an interesting game, but i like it so far.

It makes a bad first impression though. For all of its insanely high-detail character models, the way it all works together is less than stellar. Flat and dull explosions, harsh lod scaling, and some shockingly inconsistent art quality. Ragnarok, the Valhalla remake, comes across as especially schizophrenic, and the first two levels of the campaign are pretty rough in spots too. The overall effect is that Reach was inarguably a much, much better looking game. (Though in Halo 4's defense, it also maintains a much more consistent framerate and does not suffer from Reach's weird frame blending effect that could be particularly irritating if you were prone to noticing it.)

I'm also finding Halo 4's sound design to be really in your face with how crisp and loud everything is, there is no subtlety to it at all.

As for gameplay impressions, i feel like i need to play more, but i think it plays quite well. In the campaign, there's still a lot of big combat spaces and i think the new promethean enemies are a lot of fun to fight. For online, i don't have any clear picture of how the significant changes will end up affecting the game.

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I'm watching Giant Bomb's quicklook, and only now I'm realizing just how much license humanity gives the Master Chief to be kind of adick. I've always been super-careful avoiding fratricide, but in this video, the player's driving a tank, nonchalantly runs a friendly marine over on his way to his objective, and no one takes offense.

I'm loving the idea of an alternate universe Master Chief, who has killed numerous marines with poor marksmanship and even worse driving, but is still somehow treated as the great savior of humanity

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Yea I watched that aswel, he was a classic Mary Sue. They hand him all the best guns, then say OVER HERE, MASTER CHIEF! USE MY MECH!

Then there's a second mech hangin around the battlefield as if every time a guy goes near it, someone shouts NO, LEAVE IT FOR MASTER CHIEF! HE MIGHT NEED IT INCASE HIS ONE RUNS OUT. Then Master Chief stomps by, recklessly running too close to enemies and so on.

Then a video screen pops up on his HUD and says "You're our only hope, Master Chief. You seriously are the greatest."

...oh I've never played these games. This one actually looks cool, cos I hated the old alien design, I might buy it.

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I'm loving the idea of an alternate universe Master Chief, who has killed numerous marines with poor marksmanship and even worse driving, but is still somehow treated as the great savior of humanity

Sort of like the Gordon Frohman of Halo?

hl-index-12.jpg

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...oh I've never played these games. This one actually looks cool, cos I hated the old alien design, I might buy it.

If you're mainly interested in a campaign, Halo 4 probably isn't the game to start with. I'd recommend either ODST or Reach, both are stand-alone story arcs and aren't mired in series history. (Seriously, Halo 4 is thick with it.) ODST, especially, works well as something you can take in by itself, and i think it's probably also the best campaign experience in the series.

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I should play ODST at some point. Reach had a surprisingly enjoyable campaign (I haven't enjoyed a Halo campaign since the first half of CE before they start forcing you to backtrack). I don't think I'll be playing Halo 4. Not least because my XBOX sounds like it's on the verge of melting down every time I turn it on. I'm excited by the idea of AI rampancy, but I don't see how I can take it seriously behind the veneer of a hyper-sexualized robot girl. I dearly miss the cold faceless AI's of Marathon.

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I loathed ODST and quit after about an hour. I absolutely despise the levels that are supposed to be where future humans live, the cities and what not, in all the halo games. No human being could live like this god damn it

Currently installing halo 4, lets see how this one fairs

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I thought ODST was fantastic, and bought Reach when it went under $40. I've just started playing it as of last week when I was looking for a way to procrastinate faced with a soul-crushing mountain of homework. I'll probably play Halo 4 in about 2 years. I've always enjoyed the Halo games, I've just always played them at least a year after they've come out.

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I managed most of the intro movie before being called down for din dins. I'm impressed, already more and better story then the last five games combined.

But where's my dramatic halo menu music ?

Bumbumbumbaa Bumbumbumbaa Bumbumbumbaa

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There's a new composer on the series. You'll hear some subtle nods to the original soundtracks here and there, but it's mostly new pieces. There's some great ones in there, but i don't think it feels like it has as much of an identity as Marty O'Donnel's scores did.

Also, even if you've played all the previous Halo games, if you've only ever done that, i suspect that the story in 4 will be highly confusing. A lot of the things brought to the forefront in this game are things that were always mentioned only in the novels or, if in the games, in an otherwise cryptic fashion. (Remember the Halo 3 terminals?)

I've finished that campaign though, i think it's pretty good, maybe one of the better ones. Though, to me, it seemed a touch easy on heroic.

The competitive multiplayer has been making a good impression too, i will say. I think it has some not-insignificant problems, but i don't think 343 fucked it up in any dramatic way.

I guess i'll check out the first "episode" of Spartan Ops now. (Their weekly story-driven episodic co-op content thing.)

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I've played all the games aside from ODST and I'll never make sense of the story. 343 Guilty Spark, Mendicant Bias and the Gravemind walk into a bar, and… yeah, I don't know.

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it seemed a touch easy on heroic.

I was going to play it on normal

I read in a review (polygon I think) that the campaign on normal was harder then in previous games....guess he was a pussy

Heroic it is then, I played through reach on heroic. And the name is more fitting to the kind of guy I am

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343 had talked some about "re-centering" the difficulty levels, which probably can be taken to mean that normal is pushing people a bit more, while heroic is a little more accessible.

Edit: Man, i just finished watching that giantbomb quicklook, and they're just constantly down on it for not doing anything new, which is crazy to me. Halo 4 brought with it some of the biggest changes the series has seen.

I mean, i guess the disconnect is that, if you're not into the multiplayer, it just looks like Halo with a better story. 4 is a radically different game on the multiplayer front though, and it's not just beause there are perks. I'm not sure if those changes are for the best, but there are definitely a lot of changes.

I've played all the games aside from ODST and I'll never make sense of the story. 343 Guilty Spark, Mendicant Bias and the Gravemind walk into a bar, and… yeah, I don't know.

So have you heard the one about The Didact, The Librarian, and The Mantle...

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Man, i just finished watching that giantbomb quicklook, and they're just constantly down on it for not doing anything new, which is crazy to me. Halo 4 brought with it some of the biggest changes the series has seen.

I mean, i guess the disconnect is that, if you're not into the multiplayer, it just looks like Halo with a better story. 4 is a radically different game on the multiplayer front though, and it's not just beause there are perks. I'm not sure if those changes are for the best, but there are definitely a lot of changes.

Yeah, I feel like this is similar to what happened with StarCraft 2. If you were really into Brood War's multiplayer, every minute change in SC2 feels earthshaking. I mean, the new pathfinding alone would have completely changed the way BW played.

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This is another halo game. There's not really any other way to say it. Five levels in and they're up to the old tricks: little exposition, casually broached plot points, similar templates for weapons for different races, lots of shooting. If you liked the last two this one's a good bet as well.

I like it, I think it's fun. It's Halo! Not eh, but yeh!

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I'm 3 levels, it looks really nice, reminds a lot of metroid prime

I was a little bummed that 5 mins into the game you were shooting the same old aliens with the same guns. But the 'combat' does feel really good. Refined

This engine would be awesome for a new Jedi knight game

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I agree about the metroid comparison to an extent. The inside of the helmet and some of the enemies and environments especially.

Metroid Prime 2 space pirate-

Spacepiratetrooper.jpg

Halo 4 Promethian Knight -

Promethian_Knights.png

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I read on neogaf that some retro studios guys worked on this. Not that that would instantly inject metroid into it. But, the helmet effects and environments are easily the closets thing I've seen to metroid in the daus sinces. And now you've pointed if our the energies. Good eyes Murphy

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How do you guys feel about the Prometheans as enemies in this game?

Also, is anybody else here playing any of the competitive stuff?

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But, the helmet effects and environments are easily the closets thing I've seen to metroid in the daus sinces. And now you've pointed if our the energies. Good eyes Murphy

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